Lesbi Crafty

Thursday, May 30, 2013

I want to thank all of you again, those of you who read my blog, for sticking with me and encouraging me to keep writing. I've received messages telling me that I've entertained and inspired, and knowing that I've helped teach others is a really wonderful thing.

When I first started the blog, I honestly didn't have terribly high hopes. My last blogging attempt petered out into nothingness, so I figured I wouldn't be surprised if this one did, too. But then, people were responding. People were sharing my posts with others and talking about them. In the grand scheme of blogdom I'm just a speck of dust, but the fact that my words were important to people I didn't even know kept me going, and here we are!

Of course, I'm not going to stop here, either. I have plans for Lesbi Crafty's future (though when those plans will come to fruition, I know not). I'm going to move to a different blogging platform, and--with luck--join BlogHer's Publishing Network and start earning money doing this weird bloggy thing.

Most importantly, however, I'm going to keep writing. As long as I keep knitting and society keeps sucking, I'm going to be writing.

Friday, May 24, 2013

So I'm going about my business, reading Jezebel like ya do, when I come across this article about how quickly a new line of "fatkinis" sold out after becoming available. Now, I'm not surprised at all that this happened; despite statistics that show that a very large portion of the American population is fat*, it seems clothing retailers not 100% geared towards plus-size fashion vastly underestimate the demand (whether this is on purpose or not, I don't know). I'm used to not being able to find things in my size when I go into a store, and I'm not even that fat.

Monday, May 20, 2013

When you're a queer person, you come out to people. A lot. I'm only now grasping as an adult that it really truly never ends. I thought: most of my family knows I'm queer, all of my friends know, so surely I don't need to worry anymore, right?

Nope.

As a human who sometimes likes to leave the house, I keep finding myself in situations where I could come out, or not. I have to weigh those times very carefully.

It's different from when I was a teenager (so many years ago, right?). Then, coming out was an active thing; I would pull trusted friends aside and tell them. They would hug me and assure me that they still loved me. We would go back to whatever it was we were doing. There would be a little thrill because YAY it had gone well.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Yesterday, Lesbi Crafty reached 10,000 pageviews. 10,000! Within less than a year of this little blog's existence!

I don't get to use this gif often enough.

Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

When I started the blog on May 30th last year (there will be a birthday post :3), I didn't think that I would reach as many people as I have, especially within the first year. I'm still not sure how this happened, but I'm incredibly grateful. You all, dear readers, think that what I have to say is valid and interesting (or, if you're a hate-reader, you consider my blog important enough in your life to hate-read, so thanks for wasting you time on me).

The funny thing is, I don't know who a lot of you are.

Blogger can tell me some things. I know that over two thirds of my views come from the US, and that I have people who've read the blog in Brazil, Russia, Norway, and Germany. I know that one tenth of those views are for one post, Voting: Why You Should Care, which even now is still my most frequently read post. I know that people have Googled me in Canada (or at least people were brought to my blog through a Google search while in Canada).

But I still don't know who many of you readers are. I have friends and family who read me, for sure, but even within the first couple of months of blogging I knew that strangers were reading, as well. When I started cross-posting to BlogHer, two of my pieces got featured and each of those got hundreds of views, all from people I've never met.

So, who are you? If you're a regular reader, what keeps you coming back? What brought you here in the first place?
I want to see actual comments! :D
And again, to all of you, THANK YOU SO MUCH.

Monday, May 13, 2013

This is a post about self-care, and nothing is more important to self-care than kittens. (Source)

I was chatting with a friend yesterday, who had bought some comic books for the first time in a couple of months. He said the happiness he gets from purchasing new comics is nearly on par with an orgasm, and he hopes that I have something to get that excited about in my life.

While it's not quite as intensely enjoyable as orgasms, I think one of the most pleasurable things I do in my life is beginning and finishing knitting projects. And by beginning, I mean walking into a yarn shop and buying materials.

Sure, I'm a social justice-y person who dislikes conspicuous consumerism* and I have plenty of days where I wish capitalism would go burn, but dang if walking out of a local yarn store (LYS) carrying a bag full of yarn, needles, and other things doesn't feel amazing. It's like a paper bag of potential. Balls and balls of yarn which, when I pile them on my floor, seem to just scream "Knit us!"

Monday, May 6, 2013

"I like giants/especially girl giants/cuz all girls feel too big sometimes/regardless of their size" -"I Like Giants" by Kimya Dawson

A couple of weeks ago, I took my measurements before ordering a dress. Between late December and now, I have lost more than two inches in the waist; I'm smaller than I've been in a long time.

I've been caught between celebrating and being unnerved at my own celebration. In December, my doctor told me to lose ten pounds because I had high cholesterol, and at the time I rationalized that he said "lose ten pounds" because the steps taken to do so would restore my health. That it was all about health, not about size or weight on its own. But now I find that even as I worked so hard to love my body no matter the size, I really truly prefer how I look at a lower weight. I find this troubling.

I've been seeing shifts and new challenges in dealing with food and my body, as I've been getting healthier and realizing that I have it in my power to improve my health further through what I eat. This realization hasn't been good.

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Hello, friends! The blog's been quiet for the last few weeks as I've been travelling. The uni I've been at while studying abroad has a three week Easter break, so I took advantage of that time to go to some places which I've dreamed about visiting for years: Sweden, Scotland, and Ireland.

I had an amazing time, and I've only been slightly inconvenienced by the fact that I'm a female travelling alone. I've visited several natural history museums and stared at lots of taxidermied birds and pangolins, motivated out of my love for a little YouTube show called The Brain Scoop. I've also seen works of art by the greats--Titian, Rodin, Van Gogh--for free. I learned about Vikings in countries which had been invaded by them. I've knit in pubs and read theology in restaurants and gotten lost both accidentally and on purpose. I listened to Swedish poetry and Irish folk music and could barely escape the sound of bagpipes, as there was a player on nearly every street. My accent changed with each person I talked to, frequently with each sentence.

Beyond the things I did, however, were the people I met. They're the true highlight of this adventure.

In Sweden, I slept on a bed set up in the corner of my distant cousin's living room. We'd never met before, but she'd offered her and her fiance's apartment as a place to stay, and I took it. She took me to her favorite touristy things in Stockholm on all of the days she had off from work. By the end of the week, not only were we talking and laughing easily around each other (I was honestly afraid that my shyness would make for an awkward visit), but I had gone to Easter dinner with the whole Swedish family, meeting cousins whom I'd only heard about as a child.

One of my cousins is a goth ghost-whisperer. HOW AWESOME IS THAT?

After that, I went to Edinburgh, where I stayed in a hostel where I met young women from all over the world: Australians, Koreans, Canadians, German Serbs. Each had their reasons for travelling, each had their stories. They came and went, but for a brief time our lives joined up in a way that would have been impossible not that long ago. I also met a veteran who had ended up homeless and had an impenetrable accent, but was friendly and chatty and told me that it was actually completely worth paying £16 to tour Edinburgh castle. On Sunday, I went to a queer-affirming Episcopalian church, was anointed, joined the congregation for coffee and rolls after the service, and spent half an hour at least talking to a woman about my travels and studies and goals. I met the rector, American like me.

Finally, I arrived in Dublin hoping that I would be able to identify the man who was letting me stay with him; a friend of my sister, whom she'd met through an online community centered around a Slenderman web series/alternate reality game. I knew him by his Internet name ("Chewie") much better than his real name, and I was worried again that things would be awkward because I'm eccentric and nerdy. Instead, I was greeted by a man with a scruffy beard and long ponytail who was wearing a patchwork leather jacket and a skirt made from worn shorts. He had a folklore degree and referred to coins as "shrapnel," and he was open and friendly right away. Upon arriving at his flat, I met Chewie's pet crow, a surprisingly adorable little bird with a lame wing and spazzy leg, and his housemate, who kissed my hand instead of shaking it. Chewie runs an alternate reality game in the same universe as the one through which he met my sister, and I got to be involved by being filmed tied up in a tunnel and crying while the Morrigan tortured Chewie's brother (trigger warning for torture and general creepiness).* Read the footnote before watching the video, please

I don't know why I was afraid of not being comfortable around Chewie; my sister and I have shared friends since she was in high school. Chewie and I get along easily, have a similar sense of humor, and pretty much instantly relaxed around each other. I hope that we remain in contact and that we can collaborate in the future (as much as I swore up and down to not get involved in an ARG because it involved horror and making/editing videos, I find myself wanting to continue my character's story beyond being tortured by a wicked deity).

My months-long stay in London has already been magical; this trip has turned the beauty and wonder up to eleven. I've made friends I hope to keep for a long time, learned skills which my privileged and relatively sheltered life have kept me from developing until now, and acquired a number of accents and speaking habits which will take a while to shake (and honestly, I don't want to shake them).

I'll be in England until June, with no classes or outside responsibilities. I don't know what I'm going to do with all of that time, but I hope I'm able to make the best of it. This has been an amazing holiday, and an amazing term.

*Hugely necessary quick and dirty explanation of the premise of Chewie's ARG here (seriously, the video will make a bit more sense if you read that first)